Today in the our Rickson Interview Series: Rickson answers is it still practical in the application of self-defense Jiu-Jitsu to control my opponent until help arrives?

BJJ Legends: It's been said that in a self-defense situation, a realistic consideration of holding on until help arrives is a viable option. What are your thoughts on that?

Rickson: Depends. I mean, if you're talking about self-defense in a situation where I'm in a regular equal situation, I can hold the guy for the cops arrive or whatever. But if I know, by holding the guy, his friends will come, or if I'm a fragile woman who has just gotten space and get out of there, it's a completely different feeling of how you have to protect and survive. I feel like jujutsu's capable to give to the opponent a very complete spectrum of the possibility, either to deflect the energy and try to escape, either to kick the guy's butt, whatever it is, the need. In some cases, the opponent is bigger, stronger, meaner, you wanna just the deflect, get space and get out of there as quick as possible. The options are there and the way you're gonna use it will depend of the need.

Tomorrow: Rickson answers the question, Do we still need self-defense taught in Jiu-Jitsu Schools?

Today in the our Rickson Interview Series: Rickson answers the question, Do we still need self-defense taught in Jiu-Jitsu Schools?

BJJ Legends: I spoke with a Jiu Jitsu black belt who told me that he felt that self-defense, the self defensive aspects of the art, were no longer necessary. His opinion, the capable blue belt would be able to handle themselves on the street in a self-defense situation, if they had experience competing under the supportive elements. This sounds like to me that you don't believe that.

Rickson: I definitely don't believe that.

BJJ Legends: Why, why not?

Rickson: Because you know, I've been doing seminars all over, and they may know how to [inaudible 00:00:38], how to guard, how to be the action, but they don't know how to avoid punches in the guard. They don't know how to feel comfortable in a stand up situation. They don't have no ideas of how to use the side kick, the blocking. So the fight doesn't start and or end on the ground. A lot of things can happen in between and I feel like, not only for the competitor, because if you think every guy going to go in your school to learn how to compete, you're very wrong. I mean, the self-defense program is to feel women, children, who has sometimes like a little intimidation, they feel like shy or insecure.

So you cannot expect this kid will be a great competitor. You have to feed them with what they need so they don't get bully on the streets. So just by learning how to not be pushed or not fall easy is already a great positive valuable thing for him to learn. The elements Jiu Jitsu has to favor the community cannot be just forgotten because somebody's just had [inaudible 00:01:43] years and try to compete. I think competition is a great aspect of the sport to develop the atheletics by the competitive result of the athletes, but not to fulfill their needs of a different purpose like a law enforcement, women, and so on.

So I'm totally disagree with that. And for me, the Jiu Jitsu who don't know self-defense, he's incomplete, he may even can handle himself, but he don't have no elements to teach his daughter or his weak cousin to be what he does. So for me, our culture is based on self-defense.

Tomorrow: Is it still practical in the application of self-defense Jiu-Jitsu to control my opponent until help arrives?

Today in the our Rickson Interview Series Rickson tells us if he will award points or advantages for sub attempts.

BJJ Legends: In Budo Challenge, you set up a situation where competitors are awarded points; eight points, I believe, for attacks, near submission attempts. We saw this many years ago. There was a similar rule in there that rewarded attempts at submission. Will you look to incorporate something like that in the current rules into new rules?

Rickson: No, the idea of Budo Challenge was make something even more sensational for TV was like extreme, only for top athletes, not exactly for like the academic, not for competitions, not even visualizing amateur sport. So we highly… pushing the guys to go for submissions and let everything out. The time limits are smaller, pushing one to explosiveness, so the idea was to create a very dynamic explosive grappling action. I mean, the results are great and this 75% of the fights were finished by submissions. So we have great result at the time. But this concept for the federation is completely different. It is more like attending the vision of becoming Olympic, attending of one vision of unifying the sport and making all the great grapplers. Kind of feel like they belong to one important community which ranking them is a unified system and giving to them the possibility to grow including to a bigger medium, you know.

Today in the our Rickson Interview Series Rickson describes us what is wrong with the current tournament rules for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

BJJ Legends: Interviewer: So lets talk about the rules then a little bit because this is obviously something that is a concern to you and you feel it's at the heart of what the problem is currently at least in jujitsu, where the division lies and an element of the artistic aspect. The rules as they exist now, do you feel that they facilitate or promote stalling?

Rickson: Definitely, I feel like the rules are a big problem for us today. Because the intention of the rules are the best, but people start to use the rules in their favor to become more confident to get the medal. So they start to develop, within the rule, situations to be legal and still be able to keep the pace under control. I feel like this is completely against the actual progressive aspect of the fight. So the rules, I mean, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so the classic points will stay.

The advantage has to go, because the advantage is a very gray area which now they are being used by the top fighters as a point. It's like imagine basketball game where the ball in the rim counts or a soccer game where the ball on the post counts. So people are not going to be paying attention more to making the basket. They will, if anything, touch the ring, okay, it's a point, so they start to play with this kind of advantage as a solid point. And sometimes, you see a ten-minute fight be decided by one advantage. So that kind of downgrades our expectations in terms of action. So by taking that advantage off, keeping the points, the real points on and also penalizing stalling by warning, minus a point, minus two points and DQ, we completely give the athlete the compromise to move, to act, instead of just waiting in a holding position which has no purpose in real life. We develop, we push him to keep moving and if he's in a bad position, make sure to get out of there. If in a good position, make sure you escalate, but you cannot just stall and just jeopardizing the sport, the patience of the audience and so on. So the sport has to be a continuous dynamic action. So I feel like that adjustment in the rules, you create a different, progressive, dynamic fight, which is better for everyone.

Rickson: Thank you, my friend. It’s a pleasure to be here with you and with the audience.

BJJ L: Thank you very much. Look, if you don't mind we will just jump right in this. Lately you’ve been promoting the JJGF. Everywhere I have seen it, on the internet. Anywhere I go I see your face, talking about the JJGF. Why don’t you give us a brief introduction to what the JJGF is?

Rickson: Nothing can put me on the position to be more motivated than have this kind of special feeling of work for the sport and for the community. I feel like JJGF got me in a very needed time because we are not here to compete with any assistant, federations, associations, or so on. We are here to provide a very important service to the community and to the sport. I think service has to be our mission in order to fulfill the need, to resolve our biggest problem which is losing effectiveness. So in order for us to restore effectiveness in our beloved art, we have to work in a very complex way, and that is what the JJGF had been doing. We create a very nice digital platform to cover three different aspects of three different pillars of action. The first one is communication. Included in that communication aspect, we are going to try to inform the community with all the elements in jiu-jitsu from tournaments, to what is going on.

We’re going to have a master's council. We are going to be there to be the voice, be active for the community. We are going to have a development council which made not from the high masters but from the guys are hands on, guys with many schools; they know what the problems are. So we are going to listen to them. We are going to create a personal profile for every athlete who would like to be involved a Facebook-like kind of thing because we believe by having their voices and asking to the masters, talking about what they feel about the community, about the sport, that will improve our sensitivity to get there. We will also create a very important element of not only communicating and listen, but also, like a directory. A free directory for every school and a paid directory for affiliated schools. But I believe the federation has to be compromised to expose everybody who do jiu-jitsu.

So if you have a jiu-jitsu school, you will be listed in our federation. So based on that communication aspect, I feel like these unifies the community and give a voice for everybody who has some kind of passion about the sport. That is the first important pillar for our federation. The second one is the competitive aspect which like for today is no matter if you are association, if you have a federation, or if you are just an independent promoter, in the today's global competitive aspect, it is a big split. I mean, some associations or federations have tiny events a year. Some has 20 or 30. Some others have 10. So it is always split like a cake. And because they are not unified, because they are not thinking the growth of the sport, they all become different corporation. Which translate them and a good business for them but does not translate in the unified view of the sport. You cannot create a ranking.

So everything makes difficult for the sport to grow for the next stage. So I believe in order for us to reach the next stage which is unified rules, like for example, from the IJJF, they have 30 events a year. We can pick maybe 5 events, the top events they have. We can pick 5 events of NAGA. We can bring 2 or 3 from grappling class and U.S. Open. So we can get a bunch, maybe hundred events a year we produced. We may get 10 or 15 events to make our worldwide circuit. And giving a different flavor because if we can get in, that’s big sponsors, major sponsors like Galax, Nike, Bench, whatever. So in that way, if the sport is unified in a sense, we can grasp the possibility for Olympics. We can grasp all the possibility to make our huge growth, not only for the fighters as a premium top selected group of athletes, but also for the promoters, also for the audience, everybody who want to take advantage of it.

In order for us to create that unified rules, it is important for us to think about the future of jiu-jitsu. And if we are talking about the rules today, maybe this is the biggest element that jeopardizing the quality of our beloved art. Because, like I said in the beginning, our problem is restore effectiveness. Why I say that is because from the last 20 years or so, the evolutionary process of the tournaments, made the athletes be very strategic, very smart in a way for the medal. But that efficiency into going to the medal, does not translate an effectiveness in real life, in the cage, or any other self-defense situation. So what I try to bring back is the concept of training in tournaments is a good step to make you comfortable in life, to make you comfortable in any self-defense aspect which does not translate today. I mean, I love tournaments, I love to see fights, but at least 8 in 10 fights, I feel boring to them.

It is just positions, I call anti jiu-jitsu moves which are developed to give to practitioner more control to the situation, more capabilities in one's move, able to get advantage or get a point or whatever, and then they stall again, and then they win the tournament. It is great for that medal but that is jeopardizing our culture which is dynamic action, motions, going to the cue, and by getting this progressive way. It does not matter if you would fight in the tournament or if you will fight in a real life situations. That is kind of very similar. But if you start to add those anti jiu-jitsu moves which are developed to exactly to stall the motion, and to keep everything in that visible control situation, you’re definitely jeopardizing the effectiveness of the sport. So, my intention is to bring back a new rule which keeps the fighter progressively looking for submission. And that hopefully would change the dynamic of the action and makes the effectiveness back to the sport.